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Thursday, 16 October 2008

New regulations and a clamp down on Hedge Funds

Dear Readers!

I post two news articles, that show and proof that we are going toward a totally controlled monetary system. These events are a preparation for introducin what the Revelation calls "the mark of the beast". Nobody will be able to buy or sell without signing an agreement to take this "mark".

World events are moving quickly. Now that basically all goverments have given guarantees and have huge liabilities on their accounts, we will see an even worse breakdown of the markets. But this time it will not be banks that need to be "bailed out" because of bankruptcy, it will be states and goverments. Only the UN will be able to do that on this advanced level. Total control will be the result...

BRUSSELS, Oct 15 (Reuters) - President Nicolas Sarkozy called at a European Union summit on Wednesday for a clamp-down on hedge funds and offshore centres as part of efforts to better regulate the world financial system.

"I would propose a simple principle, that no financial institution should escape regulation and supervision," he said according to a copy of a speech to the EU summit in Brussels.

"I am thinking, for example, of the regulation that we must apply to the rating agencies, and of the necessary supervision of hedge funds...We must also work to eliminate the grey areas that undermine our efforts at coordination, in this case the offshore centres," he said. (Reporting by Francois Murphy; writing by Mark John)

European Union leaders are set to call Thursday for the creation of international boards to oversee at least the world's 30 biggest banks and financial institutions.

The latest effort to step up regulation to address the global financial crisis is based on a proposal by U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and comes as Mr. Brown and the EU have taken the lead in responding to the crisis.The proposed supervisory body would consist of regulatory officials from big countries and financial centers, EU officials said.

The goal would be to enhance communication and response plans for bank operations world-wide, they said.That would face the significant challenge of getting the U.S. and others to cooperate.

"These are the kinds of issues that have been discussed at the Financial Stability Forum and the IMF. We will have an opportunity to discuss these -- and the ideas of others -- at the appropriate time," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.EU leaders backed the idea of a supervisory body at the start of a two-day summit Wednesday, according to diplomats from three countries.

The summit comes days after the EU's biggest economies agreed on a coordinated €2 trillion ($2.7 trillion) plan to prop up their biggest banks by buying equity stakes and guaranteeing debt. That move, which echoed a call by the Group of Seven leading nations, was rapidly followed by the U.S. All 27 EU members voted Wednesday to approve the bailout plan.

Mr. Brown said the world needs a "new Bretton Woods," a reference to the 1944 conference in New Hampshire that set up the basic rules for international banking, finance and monetary policy, and established the International Monetary Fund, which bails out countries in crisis. Mr. Brown began pushing for such a body in 1998 after the Asian financial crisis, when he was U.K. Treasury chief. The proposals are expected to be included in the summit's conclusions Thursday.Mr. Brown wants new and stricter international standards for the amount of capital reserves banks should hold and rules forcing financial markets to open their books, U.K. diplomats said.

The White House released a joint statement from the Group of Eight leading nations -- four EU countries and Japan, Canada, Russia and the U.S. -- promising to meet "at an appropriate time in the near future" to discuss ways of reforming regulation of the world's financial sectors.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and other European leaders claimed credit for imposing calm on financial markets. "For the first time Europeans showed their ability to act in an emergency in a coordinated way," said Mr. Sarkozy. "The reform can't stop at Europe. The economy is global."EU leaders have no option but to take their campaign for tighter supervision of international banks beyond Europe's borders, Mr. Sarkozy said, "because it doesn't work if you regulate one half of the world lightly, and ignore the other half."

The French president said he was confident he could win over China and the U.S. He said he will visit both countries in the next two weeks.EU diplomats dismissed concerns that even with U.S. backing, they might have a hard time selling their plan to the rest of the world, considering that the Doha Round of world trade talks collapsed this summer because the world's biggest economic powers -- the EU, U.S., China, Japan, India and Brazil -- couldn't find common ground.

Any move to create supervisory agencies would build on an existing EU proposal for regulators from the countries in which a bank operates to share information on the bank and coordinate a response if it gets into trouble.EU countries could also end up bickering among themselves about the fine print. The U.K. is unlikely to agree with Mr. Sarkozy's call for financial supervision to be extended to hedge funds, or to eliminate offshore financial centers. London is a big center for hedge funds, and on the European stage the U.K. represents the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, which are large offshore financial centers.

The talks on finance overshadowed other items on the EU summit's agenda: Georgia's conflict with Russia, EU carbon-emissions targets and Ireland's referendum vote to block a treaty that would give the EU its first permanent president.—John D. McKinnon in Washington contributed to this article.